# Channeled Material **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 8, 2014, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710 "2014-10-08T00:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/81 "2014-10-08T21:19:45Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > Can’t think of anything else at the minute. Fifty years ago my aunt started channeling someone, as evidenced by automatic writing. Not just a little bit, but pages and pages of it. She ended up institutionalized for schizophrenia. So you can add mental illness to the list. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/82 "2014-10-08T21:25:45Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Cite? > > None - not a one - of the great 19th century Spiritualists, occultists, mediums etc. I’ve come across during my research seem to have been motivated by greed, or a craving for notoriety. Not Britten, not Randolph, not Blavatsky (though she certainly didn’t mind a little notoriety), not Davis, not Davidson, not Besant, not Olcott, not Reuss, not Steiner, not Papus (also didn’t mind a little bit of notoriety), not Guaïta, not Péladan, not Boullan, not Lévi, not Wyld, not Crowley (fucking _LOVED_ notoriety, and lots of it!), not Kingsford, not Mathers, not Felkin, not Yeats. > > Same for the 18th century greats - with the possible exception of Cagliostro. > > So when you claim that “a _gigantic percentage_ of them have been outed as sheer frauds,” what exactly do you base that on? That’s quite a laundry list of grade A #1 bullshit artists you’ve got listed there, so lets do this the easy way: Which one on that list would you say is the most legit of them all? ---
**Author:** ![HenryH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@HenryH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HenryH)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/83 "2014-10-08T21:44:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Since you’re evidently not interested in scientific answers, this question is not appropriate for General Questions. Moving to IMHO. I never said I was not interested in scientific answers - I said I don’t how channelling information can be verified scientifically, which is not the same thing. The best answer I’ve gotten so far (for me) was about the ideomotor effect. But feel free to use your powers to move the thread where you wish. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/84 "2014-10-08T21:46:35Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > I never said I was not interested in scientific answers - I said I don’t how channelling information can be verified scientifically, which is not the same thing. The best answer I’ve gotten so far (for me) was about the ideomotor effect. But feel free to use your powers to move the thread where you wish. Are you at all interested in giving us the best evidence you’ve got that supports channeling? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/85 "2014-10-08T21:54:24Z")
Why am I the first to mention Ockham? “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” Adding the entities who are feeding questionable data to the mediums is unnecessary, as we know very well that the human mind is well capable of generating its own questionable information. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/86 "2014-10-08T22:02:58Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > That’s quite a laundry list of grade A #1 bullshit artists you’ve got listed there, so lets do this the easy way: Which one on that list would you say is the most legit of them all? Depends on what you mean by “legit.” All were “legit,” I believe, in the sense that they all truly believed what they claimed to believe. They were, I think, true believers - as opposed to con artists, out for a cash grab. Hell, Davis, a medical doctor, often treated his patients for free - not a smart tactic if your goal is to make it rich! But if by “legit” you mean (as I suspect that you do) that their supposed revelations were really “the real deal,” handed down from some divine source beyond man’s ken, there’s no way for me to know. After all, as Hanegraaff has put it, “regardless of a scholar’s personal beliefs (or lack of them), the existence of non-existence of divine or sacred realities is simply beyond empirical verification or falsification by scholars _qua_ scholars.” Much the same is true for many of the supposed “revelations” made by, or through, the individuals listed. So there’s really no way for me to figure out if any of them were, in that sense, “legit.” What I _can_ do is call bullshit on the claim that they were motivated by greed. On that subject, I can say for sure that all surviving evidence goes against it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/87 "2014-10-08T22:22:05Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > I never said I was not interested in scientific answers - I said I don’t how channelling information can be verified scientifically, which is not the same thing. If something can’t be verified scientifically, then it can’t be verified. There’s no other way to verify such sorts of claims. ---
**Author:** ![HenryH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@HenryH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HenryH)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/88 "2014-10-08T22:23:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Are you at all interested in giving us the best evidence you’ve got that supports channeling? I gave it already some posts back - i.e. read the Seth books and watch the videos and listen to what people that were there at that time had to say about it all - that’s the best I have currently off the top of my head. There’s loads more evidence around but I can’t remember all that I’ve read here and there over the years. And that [radio show](http://www.skeptiko.com/205-michael-tymn-explores-the-forgotten-history-of-psychic-mediums/) someone else mentioned earlier is worth a listen also. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/89 "2014-10-08T22:29:00Z")
Does this pendulum thingy work if you suspend it from something you’re not touching, like a tripod? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/90 "2014-10-08T22:31:37Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > I never said I was not interested in scientific answers - I said I don’t how channelling information can be verified scientifically, which is not the same thing. Yeah, it is. What method would you use to establish the factual nature of something, other than science? > [@](#): > > But feel free to use your powers to move the thread where you wish. My vast psychic powers are what enabled me to know that this thread is best suited to IMHO.😉 ---
**Author:** ![HenryH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@HenryH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HenryH)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/91 "2014-10-08T23:10:37Z")
> [@](#): > > this thread is best suited to IMHO That’s fine by me as long as people are still giving input now and again. Does moving from general questions to IMHO reduce exposure or something? > [@](#): > > Does this pendulum thingy work if you suspend it from something you’re not touching, like a tripod? No, AFAIK. See [here](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1018809/pg1)for someone who did some tests on this. ---
**Author:** ![HenryH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dfb087/32.png) [@HenryH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HenryH)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/92 "2014-10-08T23:12:49Z")
An interesting take on dowsing and the ideomotor effect from someone at [skeptics.stackexchange.com](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1779/how-well-is-the-ideomotor-effect-understood-and-defined): > [@](#): > > When a dowser claims that “The corpuscles … that rise from the Minerals, entering the rod, determine it to bow down” [William Pryce, 1778] I smile at the invented explanation that has no explanatory or predictive power. > > When skeptics claim that dowsing is just the “ideomotor effect”, I frown, because it sounds like just another invented explanation that has no explanatory or predictive power. > > I recently read a passage in a Tom Stafford BBC Future story about the (unrelated) Zeigarnik Effect explaining that the term: > > “…describes a phenomenon, but it doesn’t really give any reason for why it happens. This is a common trick of psychologists, to pretend they solved a riddle of the human mind by giving it a name, when all they’ve done is invented an agreed upon name for the mystery rather than solved it.” > > This immediately brought to mind this issue with the ideomotor effect. > > I understand that there are volitive movements and reflexive movement [ref], but simply declaring that there is a third type of movement between the two (where our bodies secretly act in line with our expectations, without any conscious awareness), and referencing a study 150 years old to back it up, is not terribly convincing. > > Even if a person has the expectation that the dowsing rods will cross, the idea that that will be automatically turned into exactly those movements requirement by the hands to enact such movement is an extraordinary claim. That those movements would turn out to be extremely subtle (as opposed to macro-level movements, immediately perceptible to anyone watching) is another extraordinary claim. Finally, that, unlike breathing or the reflex to retract from a hot surface, the conscious mind will be completely unaware of these movements (post hoc), even when thinking about them - seems quite unbelievable. > > If skeptics are to dismiss many different paranormal effects as being due to the “ideomotor effect” they should have substantially more evidence (and preferably a model of the mechanism) than a Latin phrase and the same 1852 paper that seems to be the primary source to many of their documents. > > It is not enough to prove that dowsing doesn’t work under controlled conditions. If you are going to make the positive claim that dowsing appears to working under uncontrolled conditions purely through the mechanism of the ideomotor effect, you need to have some substantial evidence to support that the ideomotor effect exists and can meet all of the above extraordinary claims. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/93 "2014-10-08T23:27:41Z")
I can’t claim to be interested enough in the ideomotor effect to pretend to be able to describe the mechanism by which it operates, but it is my understanding that holding a given set of muscles perfectly still for any significant period of time is not really possible for a human being. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/94 "2014-10-08T23:31:26Z")
> [@notquitekarpov](#): > > There is a million dollar prize available to anyone who can demonstrate under controlled lab conditions that they have paranormal powers. The prize money has been building up since 1964 by The James Randi Educational Foundation. > > See [http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html](http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html) > > Between 1964 and 1982 over 650 people had applied. Between 1997 and 2005, there had been a total of 360 official, notarized applications. New applications for the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge continue to be received every month. > > To date the prize has not been won. > > Maybe \*\*all \*\*the sources of this supposed channeling are strangely and consistently allergic to being tested whilst adhering to the standards of scientific rigor or there is something else going on - one of which could be the whole thing is a fiction known to the channel. > > Why does the OP think the prize has not been won? > [@HenryH](#): > > Yes I was watching his videos yesterday funny enough. Its interesting. AND THE VERY NEXT DAY SOMEONE DIRECTS YOU TO LOOK INTO HIM AND HIS WORK???!!!??? THAT PROVES IT **MUST** BE TRUE!!!heh ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/95 "2014-10-08T23:44:37Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > 1. Every medium that has ever been has always been faking it totally (consensus here by the looks of things), > > Or, > ------------------------------------------------ \<– cross this line please if you can > > \ > > Can’t think of anything else at the minute. I’m not particularly interested in crossing that line, but if you insist that it must be crossed: > [@](#): > > At least some mediums are not faking it =\> (in deference to **Mangetout** ’s numbering above: 1. They are sincerely deluded. 2. They are insane. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/96 "2014-10-08T23:53:49Z")
I read most of When Prophecy Fails. Then, I lost the book. The book centers on the case of a woman who I am sure was not a conscious fraud. She was just a deluded moron. She didn’t want fame. She didn’t want money. She wanted purpose in her life and to do what she thought was right. So when the ‘alien guides’ told her a flood would soon destroy the world, she tried to warn people. RE The Ideomotor Effect And Channeling I believe something analagous to the ideomotor effect is going on. As I understand it, the ideomotor effect works partly due to subconscious movements and partly because our muscles are never completely still. Our mind certainly has subconscious elements, and is never still. If I ask you to just say the first thing that comes into your head. I’ll get something. Some channelers are sincere people who are deluded and just spouting stuff as directed by their subconscious. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/97 "2014-10-09T01:15:12Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > What I _can_ do is call bullshit on the claim that they were motivated by greed. On that subject, I can say for sure that all surviving evidence goes against it. What evidence is that? I’m prepared to listen, but spiritualists etc have been using the tactic of declaring themselves holy and humble and disinterested in money - while quietly raking it in - since forever. It’s pretty much an essential for anyone in this game to do and say everything they possibly can to give the impression they are not in it for the money, because if there are any signs to the contrary, the suckers are going to be more skeptical. > [@Steken](#): > > None - not a one - of the great 19th century Spiritualists, occultists, mediums etc. I’ve come across during my research seem to have been motivated by greed, or a craving for notoriety. Not Britten, not Randolph, not Blavatsky (though she certainly didn’t mind a little notoriety), not Davis, not Davidson, not Besant, not Olcott, not Reuss, not Steiner, not Papus (also didn’t mind a little bit of notoriety), not Guaïta, not Péladan, not Boullan, not Lévi, not Wyld, not Crowley (fucking _LOVED_ notoriety, and lots of it!), not Kingsford, not Mathers, not Felkin, not Yeats. Emphasis added. Dude, seriously… ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/98 "2014-10-09T01:16:53Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > Not true according to rationalwiki anyways: “The ideomotor effect has been well documented; however, it still remains an effect that is largely unknown to most people, including scientists.” OK. Fair point. But then personally I tend to do at least a bit of basic research about both sides of a controversial issue before I start saying I definitely believe in something. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/99 "2014-10-09T01:25:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I asked my pendulum “do psychic powers exist” and it swung to “No”. > > I don’t quite know what to make of that. \*“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” \* -Carl Jung ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710/100 "2014-10-09T01:59:45Z")
> [@HenryH](#): > > An interesting take on dowsing and the ideomotor effect from someone at [skeptics.stackexchange.com](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1779/how-well-is-the-ideomotor-effect-understood-and-defined): > > > [@](#): > > > > It is not enough to prove that dowsing doesn’t work under controlled conditions. If you are going to make the positive claim that dowsing appears to working under uncontrolled conditions purely through the mechanism of the ideomotor effect, you need to have some substantial evidence to support that the ideomotor effect exists and can meet all of the above extraordinary claims. I’ve cut much of your quote but here’s the thing: there is a tiny element of truth in what the author of your quote is saying, but it’s not important. It is true that no-one can set out a detailed mechanism of the ideomotor effect. But that is true of most psychological effects: our knowledge of the inner workings of the brain is very crude. At this point however the objective fact is that the ideomotor effect occurs. There are three possible explanations for the ideomotor effect. The first is that the subject is moving the pendulum (or whatever) consciously (fraud). The second is the subject is moving the pendulum subconsciously (which is unremarkable even if the mechanism is not understood). And the third is that some weird magik is making the subject move the pendulum in ways that are indistinguishable from how the subject might move the pendulum consciously or subconsciously. The third possibility _cannot be ruled out_. One of the things that most wise skeptics realise is that there are weirdass possibilities that cannot be disproven, and you can waste a lot of breath trying. But there is no real reason to believe in those possibilities without evidence, and if you do so you are probably being taken for a sucker. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/channeled-material/700710.md?page=6)