Conference hydra::dejavu

    To kick things off, a small entry on "spirit photography."  It isn't
    as common as it once was, but during the spiritualist movement,
    there were numbers of self-proclaimed spiritualists who would use
    photographs to bolster their claims.
    
    One dodge they'd use would be to take a film that already had an
    expopsed plate on it and use that to photograph a subject.  The
    pre-exposure was of a "spirit" taken against a black background,
    and the resulting double exposure would suggest that an "invisible"
    spirit was caught by the camera.
    
    Stage magicians quickly lerarned the trick, and often would foil
    such attempts by removing the photographic plate to be used and
    reinserting it in upside dowm.  The "ghost" figure then would alweays
    be inverted.
    
    Double-exposure used to be done in a darkroom; now it's more likely
    to be done beforehand.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

  < I'm estabilishing this note to discuss fraudulent events and
  techniques.
  
  The only thing that stands out for me  in this note is the negative
  tone of it - keeping in mind that focusing on negativity
  often is in itself fuel for the fire (this is in no way ment
  to endorse avoidance of any kind)
  
  It will be interesting to see if in fact balance can be a part
  of this note - or even if it's desired.
                                  
  - Lora

    re .2:
    
    This note was not meant to be "negative"; rather, it's to separate
    out the wheat from the chaff.  
    
    Coupla points:
    
    1) Anyone reading the notes and replies should hardly call me
    closeminded.
    
    2) The only way to find the reral gold is to throw out the fools'
    gold.
    
    There have been fascinating books written on the subject of fraud.
    Some are strident and emotional (James "The Amazing" Randi's _Flim-
    Flam!_ being a good example), others are calmer (Houdini's _A Magician
    Among the Spirits_, for instance).
    
    When you're exploring uncharted territory, it's good to find out
    where the traps are.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Re .4:
    
    I certainly don't excuse all of Randi's actions, but he also
    illustrated how some people can fall for easily faked items.
    
    Houdini's interest was to get rid of the junk, niot to discredit
    all serious investigations.
    
    As noted before, if we're going to try to investigate the wheat,
    we have to get rid of all the chaff.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    One of the great difficulties of telling the "psychic" manifestations
    from the "physical" manifestations is that it seems _very_ rare
    that one works completely without the other.  Uri Geller's spoon
    bending came under great fire by Randi, because he pointed out ways
    in which the spoons could be weakened, the strength of hands, etc.
    But in another note in this file, I was fascinated to read of some
    experiments that one of us was conducting in staff meetings regarding
    psychic activity.  They tried spoon bending after doing mental focusing
    exercises and were astonished that when they "put their minds to
    it" it was easier to make their bodies bend the spoons.  This, BTW,
    is a phenomenon known to every weightlifter and body builder.  All
    books and articles you read on strength training stress the need
    for mental muscle applied to the exercises as well as physical.
    The body-building pros all state that you can contract muscles harder
    and longer if you mentally focus on the muscle and envision the
    weight being lifted by the power of that muscle.
    
    So what to conclude?  What I believe is that the union of body and
    mind is much more powerful than either one alone.  That mental and
    emotional states influence our strength and health is getting talked
    up more every day--especialy by those who study the immune system.
    And any physical culturist can tell you how making the body more
    fit can greatly influence your mental and emotional strength.  I
    guess that some respond more strongly one way, some another.
    
    So, while Uri may not accomplish his psychokinetic feats via mental 
    effort alone, perhaps Randi is actually more "psychic" than he thinks!
    I wonder how Randi would react to that one?
    
    Marcia

    <sigh>
    
    It's taken about six responses to get this startted back on the
    track.
    
    Folks --
    
    Let's admit that there asre those who exploit credulity for their
    own ends.  Kathleen indicated Voodoo in another note as a sort of
    institutionalized example.  There are gypsy scams such as the curse
    (shown by an egg with a "devil" in it -- courtesy of a little sklight
    of hand) where "cursed money" is supposed to be cleansed by a ritual
    and burial (by the time the "client" digs up the box/sack/case with
    the money "undergoing purification," the gypsies involved are long
    gone); the money is "magically transfoermed" into cut-up newspaper
    [guess it _was_ cursed! ;-)].  There have been the spiritualist
    scams where a grieving [usually] widow or parent is confronted with
    the "spirit" of the "departed" and told to give a large endowment
    to the medium who "brought the spirit back" to the victim.
    
    All this junque:
    
    1) gets in the way of serious research, and;
    
    2) lowers the credibility of nonfraudulent reports.
    
    Let's try again, huh?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.