Paranormal Activity?

Can human beings really have precognitive dreams that foretell the future? Can they really find water by dowsing? Can they really be mediums? Can they really be magnetic? Can they really have psychic ability?

If, like me, you think the answer to all these questions is, in line with Betteridge's law, no then you'll probably find yourself in agreement with Professor Chris French. French is head honcho at Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub (and recently retired from his position as Professor of Psychology and head of their Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU) at Goldsmiths) and he was at Davy's Wine Vaults (in a much nicer room than last time) for the last Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub of 2022 for a talk called 'Putting the claims to the test' in which he'd speak about how, over the years, him and his colleagues have tested supposed psychics, mediums, and the like to see just how real their powers are.

It's a talk he had to cobble together pretty quickly as the planned speaker Michael Marshall had had to pull out due to a combination of bad weather and rail strikes. Those two things, and maybe a World Cup semi-final which saw Argentina beat Croatia 3-0, no doubt kept a few others away but there was still a reasonably decent crowd so it was a shame the projector had been stolen and Chris had to hold his laptop up to show us some short films.

I'd even nearly been late myself as my plan to visit Goddard's Pie and Mash shop had been scuppered because they were closing early for their Christmas Party. I went to Pizza Express instead but it was a rush to eat a pizza (and drink a Peroni) in time. I got there just in time to hear Chris start by talking about his work and how, both professionally and personally, he always starts off by assuming, skeptically, that paranormal phenomena does not exist.

With the caveat that he'd happily be proved wrong. Mostly, the APRU debunk claims and look for rational explanations as to why so many people believe in things there is no evidence for. But sometimes they also test these claims and one example is the case of Derek Ogilvie who back in 2006 was pretty big. The self styled 'baby mind reader' had a book out and series on Channel 5.

Being on Channel 5, you won't have seen it. But the gist was that he could read the minds of adults, children, and even babies. Babies, somewhat surprisingly, weren't thinking about the things you might imagine them to be thinking about (shitted nappies and sucking milk out of their mum's boobs) but instead had quite evolved thoughts about family businesses, DIY, and car maintenance.

Ogilvie wanted to be tested and he'd heard that, in America, James Randi was offering $1,000,000 to anyone who could prove they had psychic abilities. Unfortunately, to get to Randi, Ogilvie would first need to undergo a preliminary test set by Chris French and his colleague Chrissy Wilson and they weren't offering a cool million dollars. Only "a nice cup of tea and a biscuit".

French and Wilson had noticed that during Ogilvie's readings the children's parents had always been present. Suspecting that, knowingly or not, Ogilvie was using a form of 'cold reading', it was suggested that he carry out some readings without the parents there and all parties agreed that would be fair.

Ogilvie even told a friend he believed the test would be "a piece of piss" but when the parents were called in to see if they recognised the reading of their child only one of six test cases were correctly identified. Which is about the same results you'd get from making a wild guess.

Ogilvie broke down in tears and feared his career was over but, of course, it was not. People who believe in the paranormal don't care what Skeptics think or say. He went on to take Randi's test and he failed that too but Ogilvie's still out there reading the minds of babies now and he still seems to think that babies are obsessed with car engines too.

Another case is that of the professional psychic Patricia Putt who claimed to be the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian called Ankhara. She quite fancied $1,000,000 too (who doesn't?). When she produced ten readings for Chris and Richard Wiseman (as a preliminary to Randi's test) she scored an incredible 0%.

 

Immediately she admitted she'd failed and was gobsmacked by how abysmally she'd fared. But within just two days she'd changed her tune, claimed she'd been stitched up, and decided to mark her own homework instead. Unsurprisingly, she decided she'd not failed the test but passed it - and with flying colours. Awarding herself a 100% success rate!

Aurel Raileanu, a Romanian man who claims to be a human magnet, is an amusing case. He puts spoons on his chest and they don't fall off. But he also puts irons on his chest and they don't fall off. Television sets too, as well as large pieces of wood which is odd because most people would not consider wood to be a traditionally magnetic material.

When Aurel was put to the test, the simple insertion of a tissue between his chest and the spoons/irons/tellies resulted in the items falling to the ground. It seemed the secret of Aurel's magnetism was, quite simply, that he had a really sweaty chest and things stuck to it.

 

Chris Robinson, the 'dream detective', was 'big in Japan' and he claimed to be a precognitive dreamer who could dream 'to order'. Chris French tested him for a programme on Channel 5 (you'll have spotted a theme by now) but to be fair to Robinson he was allowed a second judge of his choice and he chose the producer of the show who was understandably keen for Robinson's powers to be proved true.

Unfortunately he failed miserably but there was one other case, one other precognitive dreamer - one who paints rather than writes down his dreams, that was a little more curious and worthy of further investigation. David Mandell was, in a Channel 5 (obvs) series from 2002, described as 'The Man Who Paints The Future' and, in some ways, he certainly did that.

He painted disasters and terrorist attacks but he was unable to specify when these dreams would come true. The events depicted could happen in one day or in twenty years. He painted the twin towers crumbling into each other (not exactly right but still), an IRA attack on Heathrow Airport, a sarin gas attack in Tokyo, the Dunblane massacre, and Diana's death in a tunnel.

That all sounds pretty impressive but when you see the paintings they're quite vague (the Diana one is pretty much a scribble) and widely open to reinterpretation after the events. He also painted a very large number of paintings and, twenty years later, 85% of them have no relevance to anything that has ever actually happened.

So, close but no cigar and no $1,000,000 and no evidence yet, anywhere in the world, that such a thing as psychic ability exists. Yet, like the dowsers that Chris French and Richard Dawkins tested in a video shown at the talk, many continue to believe they have special powers and many others remain convinced of it too. A few are downright frauds knowingly lying and conning grieving people at their lowest ebb. But many genuinely believe. We shouldn't go too hard on them but we should debunk them and test their claims. Because if there is a genuine psychic, magnet man, or precognitive dreamer out there they will pass all these tests easily and just think how amazing that would be.

With that I hopped on the DLR to Lewisham, took the P4 bus back home, and watched yet another depressing episode of Newsnight. If paranormal activity can't lift me out of this grim winter (because it doesn't exist) then at least events like Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub and people like Professor Chris French can make life just a little bit more joyful. Looking forward to more of this in 2023.