One of the favourite arguments of the fundamentalist skeptic is that the medium they are testing cannot produce a spirit on demand.
My view is a little different. Any medium who can produce a particular spirit, on demand, is immediately considered 99.9% likely to be a fake.
Real mediums talk to spirits. They do not control spirits. A real medium can only converse with whatever spirit happens to come along, and sometimes there just aren't any around. A real medium does not have a 'psychic cellphone' with which they can call up individual ghosts. I say this a lot, but ghosts are dead people. Sometimes people have other things to do, other places to be, and sometimes they just don't want to talk.
If someone really does summon a particular spirit when they are asked to do so, they should not be considered a medium. They should be considered a necromancer, and summarily burned. Ideally on a bonfire of the fakes.
So a medium, who has been attested as genuine by independent witnesses, and who cannot produce a particular spirit on demand, is likely to be the real thing. Yet these are dismissed by most investigators for the very reason that makes them likely to be genuine. Sometimes science is blinkered. Too often, results are published which allow the fundamentalist skeptic to crow over failure, while ignoring the flaws in the method that produced those results.
Sometimes you just can't win.
On a lighter note, after much fiddling around I have managed to place a link to my small ghost-hunting book on the sidebar. Eventually I will work out how to place a photo of the cover there.
4 comments:
Ah, fortune tellers are like mediums. They can't decide what to see, any more than a medium can decide who to contact. Normally a fortune teller will 'see' something which has a large impact, such as an earthquake. Those societies we call 'primitive' make good use of someone with such an ability. Our 'advanced' societies tend to assume the 'seer' was somehow responsible for the event, which is why they don't speak up.
A lottery draw is of no consequence, really, so it won't be easy to 'see'. Of course, you can't tell a skeptic anything like that and expect them to listen.
Also, like mediums, there are only a few real ones among the hordes of fakes.
Thanks for the tip on adding the book to the photo slot. I'll play around with that later--I've had one victory over the computer today, best not push my luck. It's a good thing the Internet doesn't record what I'm saying when I try to fathom HTML.
Something just occurred to me...
If I could see the future (I can't) and I saw the lottery numbers for next week, would I buy a ticket?
Yes.
Would I tell anyone I could do this?
Absolutely not.
I'd be overrun with people demanding to know the next set of numbers. Organised crime would be at my door like a shot. I'd get threats (Tell us the numbers or we'll kill you). I'd get beggars (Give us money. It's easy for you to get more).
I'd say it was just luck. Why would I leave myself open to all that? Better to keep quiet and spend the money.
How many lottery winners are talented 'seers' who are keeping quiet, I wonder? Not many, I'm sure, but there might be one or two.
Lady here in the U.S. Just won a second million in 4 years. The odds are astronomical. Maybe she's a seer and doesn't even know it herself.
...or maybe she does...
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