Cartoonist Scott Kurtz, who contributes to a "gaming" site at http://www.pvponline.com/, ran the strip that you see here, on April 1st. His character Skull The Troll is a naive critter who tends to accept and believe anything. Where have we seen similar characteristics....? Another character, Brent Sienna, recognizes Edward for the faker he is, and is trying to show Skull just how vapid Edward's performance is.

This was to be a one-time commentary for April 1st, but the angry reaction Scott received from the offended Edward believers was so heavy that he decided to run the subject for a full week — and worked me in on the last episode. He's kindly given us permission to use the strips, so I'll run one a week here on the JREF page, starting now. I think Scott — and Brent — have Edward's act down pretty well....

Reader Simon Nicholson, in the UK, shares the following amusing — and instructive — story with us....

A friend came across a horoscope program — I think she downloaded it off the net. The idea was that you typed in your date of birth and it would generate a profile of your personality, along with predictions for the forthcoming week or two concerning health, wealth and love. She ran off printouts for all her friends and family, myself included.

The reaction of most people was lamentably predictable; they marvelled at the uncanny accuracy of the profiles, "Oh that's me to a T" etc. etc., as well as the predictions. In vain I tried to point to the generic nature of the texts, the fact that people are simply not as unique as they like to think, and the vague wishy-washy style of the predictions. I was overruled. The consensus was that there had to be something in this astrology lark, and what did I know, I'm only an astronomy graduate.

They had their comeuppance a couple of days ago, when my friend realised that the software in question was American in origin, and so used a reversed date format to that which we Brits use — the day and month are the other way round. In other words, the profiles and predictions she had been giving out, which everyone found so apt and accurate, were not for their birthdays at all! Someone born on the 11th of February would get a Horoscope for someone born on the 2nd of November, and so on! The fact that the astrobabble was based on a completely different birthdate had made no difference at all to its perceived "insights"!

Why are we not surprised? Thank you, Simon!

Philip Sadler, Director of the Science Education Department at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, MA, has informed the public that two events will occur that I'm sure will bring all the nutcakes out into the streets screeching and preaching yet another End of the World.

On the evening of May 5th, the bright planets Mars, Saturn and Venus will group together to form a perfect equilateral triangle in the western sky. This eye-catching configuration will be visible almost everywhere on Earth, and in the Middle East, says Sadler, this pyramid-shaped arrangement will hang directly "above" Bethlehem — if you choose the right hour, of course.

Then, on May 10th, Mars and Venus will appear to pass so close to one another that, to the naked eye, they will become one. Both these configurations will only be illusions seen from our Earthly point of view, of course, since the planets will merely be aligned in that sense, but no closer to one another than they've been before.

Oddly enough, says Mr. Sadler, this same grouping of planets may have caught the attention of the Biblical Magi more than 2,000 years ago, because on April 1, in the year 2 B.C.E., those same three planets came together to form an equilateral triangle over the city of Bethlehem — as well as over every other town and village across the world.

(I'm a little troubled by Mr. Sadler's statement about any configuration being "over" any specific spot on Earth. Stars or planets are "over" all places on Earth within a wide band of latitude, and the groupings he specifies will not be relatively short phenomena like eclipses, so will be seen in the same way all the way around the Earth. His statements are certainly correct, but not exclusive. Just a point to make.)

Nothing like this will occur again in our lifetime, unless we are redwoods or another long-lived form of life. Mr. Sadler suggests that, at the very least, this presents a wonderful opportunity for friends and family to come together and share an experience beyond the daily routine, an opportunity to ponder our fragile existence on Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot racing around a very ordinary yellow star in the company of eight other planetary companions. It may help us, just a little bit, to bring our own world back into perspective.

Try it. You'll like it.

The team of Ian Erik Morris and Roger Christian Zollo have contributed to SWIFT previously. We're happy to have them back, this time looking into history for illustrations of how the high and mighty have entertained beliefs that one might assume only the "lower classes" would have.

Nothing New: The Gullible Frederick III

So far in this occasional feature, our avid readers have seen examples of how the desire to believe in magical things we see all around us today has always been with us, in different forms. We have discussed medieval examples of legendary people, magical trinkets, and astrology. Don't think that it was only country bumpkins and suspicious spouses that were duped into these scams. There have been many people in authority who were taken in by such stupidity — need we remind you of Reagan's penchant for astrological consultations? Much like President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Prime Minister of Granada Eric Gairy, and Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, there have been famous and powerful people who should have known better, but were suckers anyway; one vivid example from European history was Frederick III.

Frederick, the son of Duke Ernest of Austria, reigned over the Holy Roman Empire (which Voltaire wrote was none of the three) from 1452 until his death in 1493, and was the last emperor ever crowned in Rome by a pope. At about the time of his coronation and anointment (or perhaps up to a year earlier), he hired the adolescent astronomer Regiomontanus (a subject of a previous article of ours) as his personal astrologer. Regiomontanus' predictions did not do much for Frederick's army; in the following year the Ottomans took Constantinople, then headed northwest, and took from Frederick the Austrian provinces of Styria and Carinthia. Frederick later lost more of Austria (including Vienna) to the Hungarian conqueror Mattias I Corvinus. The Imperial army might have prevented these losses, but they were seriously underfunded. So, where was the Emperor's money going, besides paying a juvenile stargazer?

One source of expenditure was Frederick III's vast collection of "holy relics." We mentioned in an earlier article the popularity of items that people claimed were of miraculous or Biblical origin, but such items were rather rare. Frederick's array of overblown junk was unusually large and he often liked to put his relics on display in the various parts of his realm. He had what he claimed were the crown, sword, orb, scepter and coronation robes of Charlemagne; all were almost certainly fakes. Along with these, Frederick had a piece of the True Cross (everyone who was anyone had to have a piece of that) mounted in gold into what he called the Imperial Cross. He also had what he claimed was the Holy Lance, the one that had been stuck into Christ's side during the crucifixion; there were several such holy lances around then. If you asked him nicely, Frederick would show you a bone from the arm of Saint Anne, the apron Christ used when he washed the feet of the apostles, splinters from the manger in Bethlehem, and a piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper. His possession of this collection of — presumably — fakes, was supposed to save Frederick from a long time in purgatory; the lowest estimate of this relief was thirty-seven years and 275 days and the highest was 230,000 days (629 years and change). Don't ask us what he did to make him think he deserved such punishment in the first place.

History provides us with other examples of poor decision makers with lots of power, too numerous to list here. Some people believe that uncritical thinking and false claims hurt no one but the believer, but if the believer has the lives of many people under his control, such nonsense can be disastrous.

On a totally different subject, I'm a staunch defender of freedom of choice, and I have always supported any person's choice of how they wish to spend their own money. True, we at the JREF try to warn folks of some of the foolish ways they can invest, but in the end, we insist that it's their choice, even though we may believe some of those choices to be unwise or simply ridiculous.

There. That establishes my view of freedom of choice. Now I have to ask a serious question of a currently-hot rock star, a member of the Aerosmith group, who has announced that he's prepared to spend a literal fortune — of his own money — to take the same sort of space ride that billionaire Dennis Tito just took. That brief trip cost Dennis $20 million, the prix fixe for such a feast of adventure. This is just a personal observation, and it expresses my feelings, but would it not be a lot more satisfying, rational, and meritorious to apply that huge amount of money to a universal cause such as hungry children, AIDS research, or housing the homeless? If I were ever to have a loose $20 million, I suppose I could be tempted by a chance to travel in space, but my better instincts would surely win out.

Just a passing observation. Now back to real business....

There is a rather strange — and popular — French writer, Thierry Meyssan, who obviously is very anti-USA in general, and certainly anti-fact in particular. His latest book, "The Frightening Fraud," is flying off shelves, according to French booksellers, and has topped Amazon France's bestseller list. The book espouses a really nutty conspiracy theory that argues that American Airlines Flight 77, the one that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington killing 189 persons on 9/11, never even existed, and that the world has been duped by a dastardly U.S. government plot. "No plane crashed into the Pentagon," he told France 2 television. He did not provide an alternative theory for what may have damaged the Pentagon.

This book's quick rise to fame can be attributed largely to attention from Internet chatrooms and television chat shows. Conspiracy theories, as always, are hugely popular, regardless of whether or not there's any real evidence for them. And there are always strange folks out there who will find a conspiracy in any event or situation. Such rumors as those that surfaced around the 1963 shooting of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, or the idea that Man never actually set foot on the Moon, are not uncommon in the United States, but are fairly rare in France.

Meyssan says key evidence shows that witness accounts on the Pentagon attack are contradictory, that there are few photographs of the crash, and that those that do exist show no debris from the plane. He also asks why the facade of the Pentagon did not immediately collapse from the shock of the impact, and he questions the fate of the passengers on the flight. "Are they dead?" he asks. Well, that's the current opinion, monsieur. The news weekly Le Nouvel Observateur wryly commented, "This theory suits everyone — there are no Islamic extremists — everyone is happy. It eliminates reality." But while newspaper Le Monde dismissed Meyssan's theory as flimsy, they opined that the information available did not quite add up. "There is no official account of the crash . . . the lack of information is feeding the rumor."

My amateur input: we know that flight 77 took off, and we have the passenger list. If it didn't hit the Pentagon, where did it land? Were all the nearly 200 passengers and all the flight controllers and literally hundreds of other airport and airline personnel, in on the hoax? It's a waste of time and intellect to argue with Meyssan, of course, and he's already made his money on the naivety of those who bought the book, so he doesn't care, even un peu.

Perhaps there is a small blessing in this man's rantings. The story just might keep the conspiracy buffs busy and off the streets — where they could get run down by inconvenient facts.

Years ago, during my TV series in the UK for Granada, I pitted a professional financial advisor — John Piper — against "astroanalyst" Roy Gillett, giving them each a hypothetical sum of �10,000 to invest in the stock market over a 5-week period. The results were as expected: John made �1,793, and Roy dropped �4,039.

Well, last month, in another such experiment in the UK, this time for National Science Week, using a hypothetical �5,000 to invest in a capricious market, financial analyst Mark Goodson lost �360, and astrologer Christeen Skinner dropped �498. This experiment, designed by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire, was particularly interesting due to the additional involvement of a Miss Tia Laverne Roberts, an admitted amateur, who lost only �231, thus outperforming the other two "investors." Tia's stocks were chosen entirely at random; the names of the different shares were written on fake money, fluttered over her head, and "eventually she grabbed four," according to Dr. Wiseman.

Astrologer Christeen Skinner, in common with the practice of those "business astrologers"at Denmark's International Society of Business Astrology, in order to make her occult-inspired decisions, looked at the "birthdates"of the companies and then drew up their astrological charts. So much for that technique. Despite all these high-tech state-of-the-art advantages used by the two adults, four-year-old amateur Tia was consistently ahead throughout the experiment.

There's a message here somewhere....

Andrew Harter is the JREF employee who handles the incoming applications for our million-dollar prize, and visits classrooms to inspire students to use critical thinking tools. He has also been active in the initiation and implementation of some of our actual tests. He offers us these suggestions on how to do a proper double-blind test....

Measuring a Medium        By Andrew Harter

So you're sitting there flipping through the channels looking for something to watch and you come upon a show featuring a guy talking to some other people about their dead relatives and such. You watch it for a moment. It's kind of interesting in a "let's turn out the lights and play with a ouija board" way. The people seem to be responding positively. It looks like this guy is doing a pretty good job of whatever it is he's doing. Since you're watching this on the idiot box, you're probably a bit skeptical about what you're seeing. After all, this is the same station that shows "Babylon 5" marathons.

The people seem real. The show seems real — well, as real as Jerry Springer. What gives? Is this guy really talking to the dead? Despite popular belief, watching television is not the way to find out. The only way to really find out if this person is legit, is for you to get him to agree to be tested under proper conditions, which doesn't mean a guy in a lab coat holding a clipboard spouting off some scientific jargon.

Let's suppose for a moment that this purely hypothetical character (we'll call him "Johnny") has agreed to let you test him. He's decided to put aside his million-dollar book deals and television show syndication, to be tested by you. What do you do? How do you test him?

You could put him in a room with another person and let him give one of his "readings." You could then ask that person to rate how accurate they thought the reading was. You could also sit a bunch of people in the front row of a David Copperfield show and ask them if they saw a man fly; one is about as scientific as the other. What you have to do is measure, not if people believe he has ability, but if he has any ability. There's a big difference, a difference that even some Ph.Ds seem to miss.

Step one in examining a claim, is finding out what the claim is. In this case, the claimant Johnny says he can talk with the dead. He says that they can tell him stuff about a particular person. So far, that's not enough information around which to design a test. You need to know under what conditions he can do the claimed feat. Does Johnny have to know this person, see this person, hear this person? All of these criteria will have an effect on how Johnny can be tested.

Let's assume that Johnny has told you that he's such a super-psychic that all he needs is a picture of the person. From that picture he can give you a one-page reading for that individual. Great! Now what?

Do we give him a photo of Aunt Millie and have him create a reading for her and then ask Aunt Millie how accurate it is? Nope. That won't tell us anything useful. Why? Well, if Millie rates it high, then all we can assume is that she thinks it applies to her. If Millie rates it low, then all we can assume is that Aunt Millie didn't think it applied to her or she just hates psychics (lovely woman, that Aunt Millie).

So what do you do? Do you do as one of your friends suggests and give Johnny a photo of Aunt Sally? (You know, the Aunt that doesn't really exist?) While that may seem like a clever idea, it's really not. If Johnny makes a reading for Sally (who doesn't exist) and you then spring upon him the fact that she isn't for real, he can claim any sort of thing he wants; "The spirits don't like to be tricked," "It must have been some other Aunt Sally," "You lied to me, you dirty skeptic." Lying to Johnny is of no help. There's a better way....

A "reading" is supposed to be a personalized account of events and persons that are relevant to the subject of the reading, facts that could only be known through supernatural means. The operative words are supernatural and relevant. Think about that. I can give readings that are almost 100% accurate to total strangers. Try this one: "You've been known to wear shoes. You've traveled in an automobile at least once and very likely breathe oxygen." Spooky. That reading is neither specific nor supernatural. It could apply to anyone. And that's the key: specificity. If it's true what the skeptics are saying, that mediums are only throwing out vague generalities based upon the responses and appearances of their clients, then a proper test would test for this claim of specificity.

Since Johnny says that he can give a reading solely by looking at a picture, we've controlled for the response (or feedback) part of the skeptic's position. The next thing to control for is the specificity of the reading. Having Johnny look at one picture tells us nothing. What we have to do is to see whether other people also think the reading is specific to them.

What we can do is get 5 or 6 (or more) readings done from photos of people and have those people try to figure out which reading — if any — is their own.

There's something to watch out for here. Since Johnny is a clever guy (he's a millionaire) he's not likely to look at a picture of Aunt Millie and say that she hurt her hip in a skateboarding accident (snowboarding is her thing). You want your people to be from the same demographic group, same gender, similar age.

In short, you give Johnny five photos of people from the same demographic group and ask him to create five individual readings. You then remove anything that directly refers to the photo ("Your blue rinse stings your eyes." "You like to have your picture taken in yellow," etc.) from the reading, make five copies, and give each person copies of all five readings, in random order. Each person is then asked to pick out which reading most applies to them.

If all five people pick their own reading, call us. Our search may be over. Otherwise, brace yourself for some lame excuses from Johnny-boy.

Okay, Andrew. The only problem I see here is getting "Johnny" to actually do the test. Remember Sylvia What's-her-name...?

Many of you will have heard of a powerful English prophet known as Mother Shipton. No reference to her prior to 1641 is in existence, so it is difficult to determine whether she actually existed as she is represented in folklore, though writings seriously ascribed to her are being reproduced even today. There were several women who claimed to be her, but it is a Yorkshire claimant who has won the title.

Mother Shipton apparently was Ursula Southill (or Sowthiel, or Southiel), the incredibly ugly daughter of Agatha Southill, known locally herself as a powerful witch. Ursula is said to have been born in a cave at Dropping Well, Knaresborough, Yorkshire, in 1488, and because of her unfortunate appearance and reputed powers, was widely rumored to be the child of Satan.

Sometime about 1512, she married a wealthy builder from York named Tobias Shipton. She soon attained considerable notoriety throughout England as The Northern Prophetess. Her prognostications received great public attention, were printed in pamphlets, and were widely distributed. Though copies of these pamphlets and booklets still exist, most versions that can be found today are mere forgeries, and many meteorological and astrological almanacs published as late as the 19th century used Mother Shipton's name freely. An 1838 book gives an idea of the overblown claims made for such tomes. It is titled The New Universal Dream-Book; or The Dreamer's Sure Guide to the Hidden Mysteries of Futurity — By Mother Shipton.

A 1686 book attributed to Edwin Pearson, The Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton, because of its similarity to another book, Life and Death of Mother Shipton, was probably actually written by Richard Head, who also wrote The English Rogue, a racy account of his experiences with various tricksters, cheats and rascals of his day. Many localized prophecies were invented to use the Shipton name to advantage.

In a 1740 book by John Tyrrel, Past, Present and To Come: or, Mother Shipton's Yorkshire Prophecy, is quoted what might well have been issued as a genuinely pre-event prediction:

Time shall happen A Ship shall sail upon the River Thames, till it reach the City of London, the Master shall weep, and cry out, Ah! What a flourishing City was this when I left it! Unequalled throughout the World! But now scarce a House is left to entertain us with a Flagon.

(The major cause of sorrow here appears to be the absence of a handy pub!) This prophecy has all of recorded time in which to be fulfilled, since no date is given or even suggested. Also, no cause of this calamity is specified. War, plague, earthquake, or fire, could all produce the cited effect. In fact, no disaster of a physical nature is inferred. Believers have declared that this is a prophecy of the Great Fire of London (1666), which is also said to have been foretold by Nostradamus and other seers.

A perfect example of an unquestionably true Shipton "prediction" is the often-quoted and mis-quoted:

Eighteen hundred and thirty-five,
Which of us shall be alive?
Many a king shall end his reign
Many a knave his end shall gain.

Though one can hardly argue with this question and the two statements, the verse was resurrected at the end of 1934 with the change of "Eighteen" to "Nineteen." Hey, close enough!

The famous seeress is said to have died at age seventy-three in 1561, and is believed to be buried at Clifton, just outside the city of York. On her memorial is carved:

Here lies she who never ly'd
Whose skill so often has been try'd
Her prophecies shall still survive
And ever keep her name alive.

This is said to be the only such tribute to a witch in all of England, since the usual memorial — if there is any — consists of nothing more than a cairn of stones to mark the spot where such a person was hanged or burned.

New inventions on behalf of Mother Shipton continue to be published even today.

Well, the JREF has been gifted with three small, very old, books dealing with this character, all of which are mentioned above. One is a 1740 printing of "Past, Present, and to Come: or, Mother Shipton's Yorkshire Prophecy," with an added "Account of her Life, Character, and other Prophesies, With their Proper Explanations." The second book is an 1870 reprint of an original 1686 book, "The Strange and Wonderful HISTORY of Mother Shipton." The third is "The New Universal Dream-Book," undated, but of similar age, with "Undeniable Proofs." This book lists possible subjects of dreams, a few of which I would not expect to be currently experienced by modern readers, such as "Briars and Brambles," and "Turnips." I really can't recall the last time I had a serious dream about a turnip....

Here's just a quick sample from the Dream-Book:

Hen and Chickens. To dream of a hen and chickens, is very unfavourable; it portends loss of property, of friends, and reputation — in love it denotes misery and disappointment. After such a dream I would advise the dreamer to change his residence. To dream you hear hens cackling foretells success in love, and an accumulation of riches by means of female relations.

You know, I sometimes wonder how I ever got along without such a valuable guide! The "Undeniable Proofs" offered — which were most certainly not written by Mother Shipton — are hardly what I'd call convincing. I deny them.

Here at the JREF, we're toying with the idea of re-publishing the three books in one volume, to run 78 pages in all, with five wood-block illustrations and one hand-colored fold-out frontispiece. I confidently believe that the copyrights have run out. Is there any interest out there in such a project? In our printing, the hand-tinting of the fold-out would be bypassed in favor of regular color-printing....

Next week, perhaps, a homeopathic revelation....