Since I've had a good reaction to the sharing of mail with my readers here, I thought I'd provide you with a couple more. The first is probably meant in jest - though I've no guarantee of that, considering the type of mail I get - and the second is, I'm sure, quite sincere, and profoundly sad.

James, let's be fair about this. In order to judge whether or not this Florsheim thing is a good deal, one should weigh the following factors:

1) How long will the shoes typically last?
2) How much more do they cost because they contain magnets?
3) Estimate the value of paper clips one will acquire by walking through offices over the lifetime of the shoe.
4) Subtract.

1) Calculate the settlement of a lawsuit against Florsheim when you slip on the floor because of a paper clip sticking to your heel.
2) Subtract.

There! Now, Mr. Smartypants, did you stop to think about THAT?

Well, this Mr. Smartypants did look into the matter, and it turns out that Florsheim adds some $20 to the retail price of their shoes to cover the magic magnets in the soles. And I only got about $2 worth of paperclips and assorted junk, so it didn't pay off.

Then I got this loud rant from an unsigned correspondent, and I was real scared . . .

.......................

I WOULD RATHER BE A RELIGOUS [sic] NUT AND GO TO HEAVEN THEN [sic] BE AN ATHIEST [sic] AND GO TO HELL. YOU REALLY HATE RELIGION DON'T YOU? AND AS FAR AS CALLING ME STUPID AND DUMBO. WELL A FOOL SAYS IN HIS HEART THERE IS NO GOD!! SAGAN AND YOU WILL ENJOY HELL A LOT. WHEN YOU GET THERE TELL HIM I SAID HI! GOD BLESS.

At least I'll be in good company, and I'll certainly pass on the greeting to Carl. Heaven must really be dull and boring, with folks like this guy crowding the streets.

We continue to get many inquiries at the JREF about the very popular cable-TV show starring talker-with-the-dead John Edward. We refer inquiries to this Web page and ask that a search be performed for the subjects "Edward" and "cold reading." I will amplify for you here a couple more of the general gimmicks used in this racket.

When Edward does his show, the entire procedure is videotaped. The TV viewer has no idea of the total videotaped content, of which he sees a carefully edited version - as with any television presentation. But there are many other things that the at-home viewer doesn't know. Edward might very well have had dramatic failures during the videotaping procedure, but these will never be broadcast, even partly. We see only the very best, sanitized, enhanced selections; from what might have been several hours of performance, we get less than 30 minutes.

We've no idea of how these audience members were selected or found, where they came from, how they got there, or who they are. They are certainly not likely to be persons who are challenging Edward or the procedure that he is following. They arrive prepared to accept and believe what they are about to see, and to react appropriately to it.

The audience doesn't know what may have already taken place between the "reader" and the subject before the reading began. The published literature on these techniques tells the operator that he can obtain much information by simply meeting and greeting the person for whom he will later be doing the reading. Casual conversation can extract data about the deceased, or about the living. A chatty person in the line-up outside the studio, or in the adjoining seat, might well be an informer who's there every time they tape a show, and who reports backstage what he's discovered.

Observations of the clothing, jewelry, accent, and level of vocabulary exhibited, can be very helpful. In some cases, what is looked upon as a "cold reading" is actually a "hot reading" because the reader has actually questioned the subject in detail. When the public reading is performed, the subject naturally expects the reader to refresh his memory and accuracy, but this is taken by the rest of the audience as a fresh revelation that could not have been known by anything else but psychic powers. For example, having been told by the subject in advance that she is looking for contact with her grandmother named Martha, the reader might proceed as follows:

"Are you the person looking to contact a grandmother?"

"Yes."

"Is that the nice elderly woman named Martha that I have here?"

"Yes."

"This lady is smiling, and nodding, showing me that that's her name. She's a very sweet lady. What is this pearl necklace she's showing me?"

The rest of the audience quite naturally believes that this is a double hit, while the subject is content that the reader was just checking the details. The assertion by the reader that the spirit of the grandmother has happily confirmed this information, removes any suspicion on the part of the subject. And the pearl necklace is very apt to connect. Does anyone out there have a grandmother who doesn't have a pearl necklace?

One maneuver of the readers can only be used when he has spent some time in the community where he is having a public meeting. He can set up sessions of individual readings that take place a day or more previous to the public gathering. When he sits with a single subject and performs a personal reading, he naturally obtains a great deal of information from that individual. At the close of the reading, he suggests that the subject attend the public meeting that is coming up, saying that he can often get more information from the spirit world when there is a large crowd present "to add strength." He even provides free tickets, up front in the audience, so that when he confronts this person he can point specifically at her and began to develop information -- data that he already knows from the private reading -- and he scores a huge success, of course.

Now, in such a situation a really clever operator will only drop in a few of the "convincers" that he has already developed and stored away. To merely recite everything that happened at the private reading, might arouse the suspicions of the subject. Remember, the subject wants results, and is not there to question the methods or to be suspicious. And the surrounding audience -- as well as any viewing audience at home -- being ignorant of these subtle methods that are being used, happily accepts that a miracle is taking place.

I was once asked to participate in a television program that involved both John Edward and James Van Praagh. I could not be present in the studio in New York on such short notice, so I traveled to a local TV outlet, where a single camera was focused on me and I was equipped with headphones so that I could hear what was going on in the studio and being recorded for broadcast later on the network. It was quite a revelation. I heard the two men working the audience on-camera, and the program went to a commercial break. The audio that reached me was from the actual studio, and to my amazement I heard Edward and Van Praagh in casual conversation with audience members during that two and a half minutes! Small details were given about family relationships and what these subjects needed to know from the spirit entities. Sure enough, when the program went back on the air, all those details were developed for the general audience in the studio and at home, and the readings looked very strong.

The host of the show was very antagonistic toward me and my attitude concerning these readings, and though I had been promised that I would have a full two minutes at the end of the program to summarize my opinions and observations, I was suddenly cut off and the host filled my time by giving the audience his own glowing opinions concerning the validity of what they had been shown. This is quite typical of how these things are done: the skeptic is introduced, cut short, and criticized, then the claim is made that both sides of the situation have been presented.

There are only three categories that need to be handled in order to be a successful reader: money, health, and love. Think about it. That just about covers the spectrum of problems and matters of interest for those who are seeking answers. Often, a reader will begin with, "It's money that's behind your situation," and if the answer should be, "No, it's about my marriage," a quick follow-up would be, "No, it's money! This marriage would be much more successful if the financial picture were better!"

And why do I make such a huge fuss over such a carnival act as Edward? Because he, and the other "readers" who plague the public currently, are trading in grief. The bereaved who stand helplessly before these operators, tears streaming down their cheeks as they're fed bits of lotus, are being lied to and victimized. People like Edward use them and discard them. They turn their sobs into dollars. And no agency of the government will step in to stop this cruel, heartless racket.

And, it's not all that skilled and difficult a process. In effect, an experienced reader simply can't fail. Anyone who attends, privately or in public, a demonstration of speaking-with-the-dead, will have a real interest in the subject and perhaps a need that might be met. Blatant errors are often ascribed to "evil spirits" who are making trouble, or to lack of faith on the part of the subject. But the mistakes are not remembered. Only the dramatic "hits" are recalled, and usually they are greatly amplified in the re-telling, later. I remind you of the famous quotation from Benjamin Franklin, who said, "There are no greater liars in the world than quacks. Except for their patients."

BACK TO THE OLD CHESSBOARD....

(I apologize to those of you who don't play chess, if the emphasis has been too much on that subject. But this was such a delicious gag, I couldn't resist it. The puzzles will return to chess later, perhaps, but not for a while).

Friends, I had a real crisis situation this last Monday. Wade Caldwell, my tireless web person, trusting that I knew what I was doing, had posted the chessboard as I sent it to him. And it was wrong! I got a dozen or so correct answers to what was a rather simple chess situation, and I had to rush onto the Internet and declare my ineptitude. Wade got the corrected chessboard up by 9:30 Tuesday morning, and I could finally breathe again. The whole problem was that in preparing the graphics, I had moved the black pieces one file to the left, and it meant that a simple promotion of the black Pawn to a Queen solved the mate-in-one requirement. When I shifted the pieces to a proper configuration, the puzzle became what it was supposed to be.

The process of "promotion" is what's involved here. It's defined by Hoyle as: "Upon reaching the eighth rank, a pawn must change to another piece, on or off the board, except that it may not become a King nor remain a Pawn." Another version of Hoyle states, "If [the Pawn] reaches the eighth rank, it must be converted, according to the choice of the player or the state of the game, into a Bishop, Knight, Rook, or Queen, irrespective of whether or not the player still has his full complement of pieces; it cannot remain a Pawn, or merely disappear from the board." Webster's dictionary defines the process of promotion as, "to exchange a pawn for any piece except the King when reaching the eighth rank." These definitions leave us a huge loophole through which we may choose to jump, a decision I made very easily. Read on.

While the usual choice made by the player for the promotion is a to a Queen -- that being the most powerful piece on the board -- none of the four possibilities allowed will achieve a checkmate for Black, since the white King can capture any of those pieces and simultaneously remove itself from the check imposed by the black Rook or by the new piece. The white King cannot move one square to the left, since it would still be in check from the black Rook, and cannot move up the board one square straight ahead or diagonally to the left, since the rules do not allow a King to offer check or move into check -- a rule of which several of my correspondents were not aware.

So then, what is the solution? I'll state here the complete rule on promotion as it appears in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, both my 1945 and 1990 edition: "If [a Pawn] reaches the eighth rank, farthest from the owner, that Pawn is immediately replaced by a Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight of the same color, at the option of the owner." (Italics added.) However, the Britannica on line (at Britannica.com) says only that "[a] unique feature of the pawn occurs if it reaches the end of a file; it must then be promoted to -- that is, exchanged for -- a queen, rook, bishop, or knight." Those critical four little words, "of the same color," do not appear! But working by this version, or by the Hoyle or Webster's rule, we can choose to change the black pawn into a white piece!

A letter from reader Geoffrey Summerhayes informs us that the official tournament Laws of Chess, adopted at the 67th FIDE Congress at Yerevan September-October 1996 and coming into force on 1 July 1997, have rule 3.4e, which says, in part, "When a pawn reaches the rank furthest from its starting position it must be exchanged as part of the same move for a queen, rook, bishop or knight of the same colour." And the World Chess Federation mentions the "same color" provision, so officially, it can't be done, but I have referred readers to the generally published and available rules....

It's evident that a transformation into any black piece will result in an immediate capture by the white King and freedom from the check in place, so that won't do. And, taking advantage of the "loophole" just quoted, there is only one metamorphosis into a white piece that will do the job for us, bearing in mind that this creation of another white piece brings it into the control of White. Note that Black cannot change his black Pawn into a white Queen or Rook, because that would place his own King in check -- a definite no-no. A change to a white Bishop is ineffective since that Bishop could capture the threatening Rook.

The only solution is choosing a white Knight, which controls three squares, none of which affect the black King. And the white King cannot capture this new piece, because it's a piece of his own color! Result:  Black accomplishes a checkmate by pure skullduggery, and by dogged adherence to the incompletely-stated rules cited.

Now, I know full well that there will be all sorts of exchanges on this, and common sense tells us that the promotion rule certainly implies "of the same color." Also, the fact that "of the same color" has been left out, does not mean that cross-color promotion is permitted, but it is not prohibited . . . These are puzzles, which often go through the looking-glass, as Alice did, and thereby take on quite strange attributes and dimensions. So please don't storm me with observations on whether or not you could "legally" get away with this maneuver. I know you couldn't.

Our frequent correspondent, Avital Pilpel, submitted the first correct response at noon on Tuesday. Several more followed rapidly, after the confusion brought about by my initial blunder was settled. Now please bear in mind that the reason we run these puzzles here, is to keep you aware of the fact that we at the JREF are daily solving situations in connection with claims, articles, references, and advertisements that need careful assessment and handling. Our minds have to work in the "skeptical" mode, and we must be constantly ready to think "out of the box," as they say. We deal here with solutions that often almost require cheating. This week's puzzle will surely illustrate that need....

Here's a problem that uses the three dice shown here. They're quite orthodox, not gimmicked in any way. Here's the question: If a rotation can include one, two, or all three of the dice, and you can place them on any side, what's the minimum number of rotations required so that only three spots are visible face up? It's a thinking-out-of-the-box solution!

Answer next week . . .