Contact with the Great Beyond--Psychics like Praagh

[Liberal]

And how appropriate!

[David_B]

Another link I was going to give, but didn’t because the site was apparently down temporarily, is an article on cold reading that looks at two cold reading books. At least one of them is by a guy who has put himself forward as a “real” psychic in the past, and then decided to share the tricks of the trade.

[Meatros]

David B -Those were good links, and a good read. Great writing!

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Czarcasm *
**Correction. Supposedly real psychics were tested for a time by our government, and found wanting. **

hmmm

So you believe all our government did with remote viewers was test them? For 17 years?

Have you heard of Joe McMoneagle? He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his work in remote viewing:
*

“Authorized on July 20, 1942, and amended on March 15, 1955, this was the first United States decoration created specifically as an award for citizens of other nations, and it is the first award to have different “degrees” to conform with the decorations of other countries. It is awarded to members of the United Nations Armed Forces for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service to the United States.”

https://wwwcfs.cnet.navy.mil/crest/awards_and_recognition/military_awards/legion_of_merit.htm
Do you believe Joe was awarded the Legion of Merit merely for allowing himself to be tested?

Just curious…

[photopat]

It’s just a pity more people won’t accept the evidence.

[Meatros]

Are you suggesting a conspiracy, without offering any evidence GOM?

[stpauler]

http://www.skepdic.com/remotevw.html
link for Joe McMoneagle

The CIA and the U.S. Army thought enough of remote viewing to spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars on research in a program referred to as “Stargate.” The program involved using psychics for such operations as trying to locate Gadhafi of Libya (so our Air Force could drop bombs on him) and the locating of a missing airplane in Africa. The mass media, ever watchful of wasteful government programs, did not exhibit much skepticism regarding remote viewing. Typical is the reporting in the Sacramento area. TV news anchors Alan Frio and Beth Ruyak led their nightly Channel 10 program on November 28, 1995, with a story on “exciting new evidence” that remote viewing really works. The same story had appeared that morning in the Sacramento Bee in an Associated Press article about “Stargate” by Richard Cole. “A particularly talented viewer accurately drew windmills when the sender was at a windmill farm at Altamont Pass,” Cole wrote. The “talented viewer” was Joe McMoneagle, a former army psychic spy. Cole based his claim on the testimony of Dr. Jessica Utts, a statistics professor at the University of California, Davis, who was hired by the government to do an assessment of “psychic functioning.” Channel 10 interviewed Dr. Utts, who confirmed that there is good reason to believe that Joe McMoneagle does indeed have psychic powers.

McMoneagle was in the army for 16 years, apparently serving some or most of that time as a psychic spy. He claims he helped locate the U.S. hostages taken by Iran during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Now a civilian psychic consultant, McMoneagle has turned his talents to more significant feats, as Dr. Utts demonstrated. She held up a drawing allegedly done by McMoneagle and declared that it was done by remote viewing. Another scientific researcher had gone to the Altamont pass, known for its miles of funny looking windmills on acres of rolling hills. McMoneagle tried to use his psychic powers to “see” what the researcher at Altamont was seeing and then draw what he was seeing. The sum total of the evidence for the value of psychic spying consisted of only one drawing and Dr. Utts’s word that it looks like the Altamont pass. I will testify that in fact the drawing did have a strong resemblance to the Altamont pass. It also had a strong resemblance to ships on a stormy sea and to debris in a cloudy, stormy sky.

McMoneagle was just one of the psychics studied by Targ and Puthoff at the Stanford Research Institute (aka SRI International) from 1973 through 1989 and by another outfit with the unassuming name of Science Applications International Corp., which did its research from 1992 through 1994. Utts and Dr. Ray Hyman, a psychologist at the University of Oregon and a skeptic, issued separate reports on these studies. Utts concluded that “psychic functioning has been well established.” Hyman disagreed. In his AP article, Cole wrote that Utts and Ray Hyman stated that “the research was faulty in some respects. The government often used only one ‘judge’ to determine how close the psychics had come to the right answer. That should have been duplicated by other judges.” I would assume that Hyman, if not Utts, would have required a bit more of these studies than that they have more judges.

As a public service, I notified both Channel 10 and Dr. Utts of James Randi’s challenge: $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove he or she has psychic powers. I don’t think a heartfelt testimonial from Dr. Utts or Mr. McMoneagle will qualify. As far as I know, the Randi money is still unclaimed.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said: “The CIA is reviewing available programs regarding parapsychological phenomena, mostly remote viewing, to determine their usefulness to the intelligence community.” He also notes that the Stargate program was found to be “unpromising” in the 1970s and was turned over to the Defense Department. At one time as many as sixteen psychics worked for the government and the Defense Intelligence Agency made them available to other government departments. One of the psychics, David Morehouse, was recruited when he took a bullet in the head in Jordan and started having visions and vivid nightmares. He’s written a book about it (Psychic Warrior) and it is sure to be better received by true believers than Mansfield’s disclaimer.

[stpauler]

Oops, posted too quickly before editing it down, sorry. For the most part, this is the most “open to the possibilities” article I’ve seen on Skepdic.com. Now, just for a bit more of testing to be done and someone could be walking away with $1M. (unlikely, but hey, I’ll be open if it were).

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

More on Mconeagle from CSICOP:

[quote]
Then there was Joe McMoneagle, a former member of the US government’s failed
psychic spying project. Unlike some of the other performers-whose feats went
suspiciously well, McMoneagle appears to actually rely on paranormal ability.
Unfortunately, his remote viewing experiment cast doubt on his powers,
although the program’s host and a volunteer dispatched to the site McMoneagle
was to clairvoyantly view, were as helpful as possible in converting his
failed impressions into successes.

The “sculpture” he saw coming out of the “water” scarely matched the
modernesque restaurant at Los Angeles International Airport, unless one
applies a generous helping of “retrofitting” (after-the-fact interpretation).
Of course there was, as McMoneagle envisioned, a “well-defined concrete
edge,” but then where in the greater L.A. area would that not be found? (In
this case a sidewalk filled the bill.)[/quote

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Meatros *
**Are you suggesting a conspiracy, without offering any evidence GOM? **

hmmm

I’m sorry. I don’t see your point. How do you reach a conspiracy conclusion from my post?

Our government was involved with remote viewing for 17 years. Do you deny that?

Joe McMoneagle is a real person. You can check that out yourself, if you don’t want to take my word for it.

What our government is doing in this area right now is anybody’s guess…

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Gom,I can’t find any official verification for Mcmoneagle ever recieiving the LoM award. Do have an official cite for this (other than psychic websites)?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Yeah, the government has experimented with psychics for years-- and failed cataclysmically. This proves nothing except the credulity and ignorance of the government.

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
**Gom,I can’t find any official verification for Mcmoneagle ever recieiving the LoM award. Do have an official cite for this (other than psychic websites)? **

If Joe had lied about this I’m sure your friends over at CSICOP would have nailed him to the wall on his claim. They love to do stuff like that, as they should, when fraudulent claims are made. His claim has been out there for years. Your friends make a lot of noise when someone they disagree with tells a lie, but it seems to me they are always silent when someone they disagree with tells the truth. Not a very balanced way to conduct themselves, imo.

Of course, YMMV.

HTH

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
**1. Yeah, the government has experimented with psychics for years-- and failed cataclysmically.

2. This proves nothing except the credulity and ignorance of the government. **

1. Well, at least you admit what is already known: Our government was involved. Could you provide some proof, or do I just have to take your word that if failed cataclysmically?

2. Um. It’s tough not to bite on that bait. However, no comment at this time.

[GOM]

*Originally posted by stpauler *
**For the most part, this is the most “open to the possibilities” article I’ve seen on Skepdic.com. Now, just for a bit more of testing to be done and someone could be walking away with $1M. (unlikely, but hey, I’ll be open if it were). **

I agree. It’s very unlikely for anyone to win the million dollars. The complaint I’ve heard, from the “psychics”, is that the parameters are rigged so tightly that nobody could ever win the prize. I don’t know. I have not looked into it.

I’m not sure if anyone is testing in this area. For some reason I think Princeton still might be… Don’t take that to the bank though. I could be completely wrong about that.

hmmm

Okay. Did a quick search. Here’s a link:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/2.html
It’s not remote viewing, but it is related, imo.

Quote:

*I. Human/Machine Anomalies

The most substantial portion of the PEAR program examines anomalies arising in human/machine interactions.

Random mechanical cascade experiment.

In these experiments human operators attempt to influence the behavior of a variety of mechanical, electronic, optical, acoustical, and fluid devices to conform to pre-stated intentions, without recourse to any known physical processes. In unattended calibrations these sophisticated machines all produce strictly random outputs, yet the experimental results display increases in information content that **can only be attributed to the influence of the consciousness of the human operator. **

Robot experiment.

Over the laboratory’s 20-year history, thousands of such experiments, involving many millions of trials, have been performed by several hundred operators. The observed effects are usually quite small, of the order of a few parts in ten thousand on average, but they are statistically repeatable and compound to highly significant deviations from chance expectations.*

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

GOM, All you have to do is scroll up a little bit and look at David B’s links on the government use of psychics.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

agree. It’s very unlikely for anyone to win the million dollars. The complaint I’ve heard, from the “psychics”, is that the parameters are rigged so tightly that nobody could ever win the prize. I don’t know. I have not looked into it.

The parameters are set up so that it’s impossible to cheat. It would be easy for a real psychic to win. The problem is there is no such thing as a real psychic.

[Patty_O_Furniture]

Statements like “The parameters are rigged so tightly…” shows a healthy bit of bias (unintentional I’m sure). A real psychic should insist on tight controls so that there can be no question as to his/her authenticity.

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic *
**

1. There isn’t any “secret knowledge,”

2. and the only deception is being done by the psychic. **

1. “Secret” meaning unknown to the “psychic” before they attempt to remote view something. Sorry if I was unclear.

2. No. Some “pschics” deceive some of the time. Some of them might even deceive all of the time. But they are not the only ones in the deception business.

[GOM]

*Originally posted by Attrayant *
**Statements like “The parameters are rigged so tightly…” shows a healthy bit of bias (unintentional I’m sure). A real psychic should insist on tight controls so that there can be no question as to his/her authenticity. **

The way I see it there is indeed plenty of bias, on both sides…

I agree that a very tight test would be most interesting. However, some would say the tests have already been done.

P.S. I doubt Praagh could pass a test on this. That’s only my opinion. I doubt he would be willing to be tested. Isn’t he getting rich doing what he’s doing?