Just got the news from Brazil. Thomas Green Morton, the "psychic" who runs about shouting "Ra!" at everyone and doing clown stunts to demonstrate his "powers," has joined Sylvia Browne (now into 333+ days!) as a quitter. Globo-TV has now dropped him and advised us that he won't take the JREF million-dollar challenge. That's not to mention Uri Geller, James Van Praagh, John Edward, and the literally hundreds of other "psychics" who similarly won't try for the prize. At least most of them weren't unwise enough to accept, as Morton and Browne did, then having to back out ungracefully. It was just as I predicted to Globo many months ago, that Morton would chicken out.

Am I prophetic, or what!

We recently mentioned the "scrambled indicia" system that the US Post Office applied to the current 37-cent Harry Houdini stamp. Going to my local post office, I found that they were totally mystified by what I was asking them about. I finally got a "decoder" device by calling 1-800-STAMP24 ($5 only!), and the results are quite interesting. What you see here is a somewhat modified, "fluffed-up" scanned image as seen through the decoder. The four chains that envelop Harry are to be found between the corresponding pairs of colored dots — which I've added to assist readers. You'll notice an incidental "moiré" effect as well, in the background.

The decoder is a closely-spaced matrix of lenticular lenses that pick up on very fine staggered patterns printed on the stamp among the regular imaging. The chains are quite invisible without the decoder. Interesting modus!

Some readers have commented on my objections to the "God" inclusions in the Pledge of Allegiance, and on U.S. currency. Quite simply, I regard it as the intrusion of religion into government, a blatant attempt to establish a one-god, Christian philosophy on Americans, many of whom have no belief in, nor allegiance to, any deity — or who choose to worship another, different, deity. In my opinion, it's a direct violation of the "separation of church and state" principle, something I highly value, as do so many others. Reader John Ruch has allowed me to use the following provocative piece, for which I am grateful. It's titled, "Stupid Question":

Q: With separation of church and state being such a big legal issue, why are witnesses still sworn in with a Bible in courtrooms?
- Dan Geiser

A: The First Amendment to the Constitution is supposed to protect religion and government from each other by forbidding laws that promote a religion or hinder its private worship. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has a little junk drawer called "ceremonial deism" in which it keeps religious laws it likes and protects them from constitutional banishment. These include Congressional prayers, "In God We Trust" on money and the federal holiday of Christmas, along with the practice of swearing in witnesses with a Bible and an oath that ends: "so help me God."

Why are these things considered constitutional while, say, school prayer isn't? The court says they're more custom than religion and are too minor to really threaten religious belief. As Steven Epstein pointed out in the December 1996 Columbia Law Review, this sophistry has led to increasingly contradictory rulings on such church-state matters as courthouse nativity displays. Over the past 15 years, court opinions have developed general principles of ceremonial deism. To qualify, a practice must be: 1) nonsectarian; 2) voluntary; 3) presented in a manner unlikely to indoctrinate its audience; 4) deeply rooted in social custom. While the court has never specifically ruled on Bible swearing, it has noted that the practice fits these requirements.

It's certainly traditional. Bible swearing dates back to old England, where only Christians could testify in court — a rule enforced by making witnesses swear before God and kiss the Bible. In 1848, the South Carolina Supreme Court noted that Bible swearing was one way in which "we daily acknowledge Christianity." As late as 1939, five states and the District of Columbia still excluded testimony of those who didn't believe in God. The Bible is still used in some Carolina and Philadelphia courts and in many oaths of office. However, it's falling out of favor in both law and custom.

Religious objectors like Quakers have long been allowed to affirm without a Bible; they're now joined by increasing numbers of Jews, Muslims, atheists and others.

In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Maryland law requiring notaries public to swear that they believed in God. In 1991, a federal appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a judge to compel an atheist prospective juror to either swear or affirm, since either oath could be viewed as essentially religious. Today, while mandating that witnesses swear an oath of some sort, federal and most state rules of evidence do not require any mention of God.

The Ohio Revised Code merely says "a person may be sworn in any form he deems binding on his conscience." No Columbus court — from municipal to federal — uses a Bible, though most still end the oath with "so help me God."

By John Ruch, (c) 1999 CM Media Inc.

A reader, Richard Schultz , reminded me of a few definitions to be found in the "Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce:

Clairvoyant, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron — namely, that he is a blockhead.

Homeopathist, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

Homeopathy, n. A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and Christian Science. To the last both the others are distinctly inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they can not.

Palmistry, n. The 947th method (according to Mimbleshaw's classification) of obtaining money by false pretenses. It consists in "reading character" in the wrinkles made by closing the hand. The pretense is not altogether false; character can really be read very accurately in this way, for the wrinkles in every hand submitted plainly spell the word "dupe." The imposture consists in not reading it aloud.

Reader Vikram Paralkar has been browsing. You may recall my account of the madness of a while ago when Indian worshipers of the elephant god Ganesh were going nuts over a miracle that quite literally swept the world. It was said that figures of the god were drinking milk offered to them....

I was just going through the JREF online archives and I came upon a mention of the infamous "milk-drinking" incident that occurred a few years ago. I live in Bombay and I was in school at the time when this happened and the incident, well, shook the base out of my world-view.

The whole sensational occurrence came to my knowledge one fine morning. The whole city seemed to be abuzz with it. News channels were going to town with clips of devotees offering milk to the deity. One of our neighbors even claimed that her relatives in Canada had also observed a similar phenomenon! I naturally wanted to see what the whole fuss was about and so I decided to pay a visit to the temple across the street.

Here's what I saw: People had mugs and containers full of milk that they poured onto the trunk of the idol of Lord Ganesh. The blindest eye could have seen that the milk was simply flowing down the body of the statue, into a makeshift trough below. And what's more, temple priests were continuously transferring the collected milk into buckets; two buckets were already full and a third was being carried into the depths of the temple. And while I watched this, appalled, people all around me were chanting and screaming the Indian equivalent of "Praise the Lord!"

What I meant by the earlier statement that "the base was shaken out of my world-view" was that till then, I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. Though I myself never believed in any deity, ever, I still felt that people could not really be blamed for believing in God, in the same sense that one cannot really blame the pre-Copernican world for thinking that the Sun revolved around the Earth. But the whole Ganesh incident put me face-to-face (for the first time, there have been many such experiences since) with the very stark realization that people are STUPID. It's one thing to believe in God because there are many occurrences that cannot (yet) be explained by science, but to attribute shades of the supernatural to something as obvious as the effect of gravity on flowing liquids...that's just beyond me.

Thanks for your time. And keep up your wonderful, or should I say AMAZING, work.

Vikram, you've lost sight of a fundamental fact here. You tell us that you've never had any belief in a deity. You immediately saw the simple truth of this mania. But those who embraced it as a miracle have believed, first, that a god with a human body and the head of an elephant can and does exist, and second, that these figures — in clay, metal, stone — are incarnations of that god. All of their thinking must be directed by that belief, for to deny the miracle is to deny their very firm convictions. Those convictions are based on blind belief that has no evidence to support it, as with all religious beliefs, but this is an integral, firm, element in their lives, unlike in yours.

Try to understand these people. You have to live with them, and the best you can do is survive among them. That's a problem we all face. Along the way, you can try to get them thinking, but that's not at all easy.....!

It's time for Part Three of the Saga of Alexander of Abonutichus, an account given by Lucian of Samosata — a Greek philosopher — to his friend Celsus. Lucian told us that Alexander has been exhibiting a combination snake-and-puppet figure as the god Asclepius. He's conquered Rome with his daring imposture, and now starts a new and very profitable twist on his racket. His clients were submitting to him sealed packets containing important and often compromising questions. Believing that these questions would be answered by the god without the packets being opened, they freely — and unwisely — expressed themselves. Lucian continues, in Part Three of his essay:

This triple rogue now hit upon an idea which would have been too clever for the ordinary robber. Opening and reading the packets which reached him, whenever he came upon an equivocal, compromising question, he omitted to return the packet; the sender was to be under his thumb, bound to his service by the terrifying recollection of the question he had written down; you know the sort of things that wealthy and powerful personages would be likely to ask. This blackmail brought Alexander a good income.

I should like to quote you one or two of the answers given by the god, to Rutilianus. He had a son by a former wife, just old enough for advanced teaching. The father asked who should be his tutor, and was told, Pythagoras, and the mighty battle-bard [Homer]. When the child died a few days after, the prophet was abashed, and quite unable to account for this summary confutation. However, dear good Rutilianus very soon restored the oracle's credit by discovering that this was the very thing the god had foreshown; he had not directed him to choose a living teacher; Pythagoras and Homer were long dead, and doubtless the boy was now enjoying their instructions in Hades. Small blame to Alexander if he had a taste for dealings with such gullible specimens of humanity as this.

Another of Rutilianus' questions was, "Whose soul he [Rutilianus] had succeeded to," and the answer was:

First thou wast Peleus' son, and next Menander;
Then thine own self; next, a sunbeam shalt be;
And nine score annual round thy life shall measure.

At seventy, Rutilianus died of melancholy, not waiting for the god to pay in full. That was an autophone [prophecy actually spoken by the serpent], too. Another time Rutilianus consulted the oracle on the choice of a wife. The answer was express: "Wed Alexander's daughter and Selene's." He had long ago spread the report that the daughter he had had was by Selene: she had once seen him asleep, and fallen in love, as was her way with handsome sleepers. The sensible Rutilianus lost no time, but sent for the maiden at once, celebrated the nuptials, a sexagenarian bridegroom, and lived with her, propitiating his divine mother-in-law with whole hecatombs [sacrifice of 100 oxen], and reckoning himself now one of the heavenly company.

His finger once in the Italian pie, Alexander devoted himself to getting further. Sacred envoys were sent all over the Roman Empire, warning the various cities to be on their guard against pestilence and conflagrations, with the prophet's offers of security against them. One oracle in particular, an autophone again, he distributed broadcast at a time of pestilence. It was a single line: "Phoebus long-tressed the plague-cloud shall dispel." This was everywhere to be seen written up on doors as a prophylactic. Its effect was generally disappointing; for it somehow happened that the protected houses were just the ones to be desolated. Not that I would suggest for a moment that the line was their destruction; but, accidentally no doubt, it did so fall out. Possibly, common people put too much confidence in the verse, and lived carelessly without troubling to help the oracle against its foe; were there not those words fighting their battle, and long-tressed Phoebus discharging his arrows at the pestilence?

In Rome itself he established an intelligence bureau well-manned with his accomplices. They sent him people's characters, forecasts of their questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready before the messengers reached him. It was with his eye on this Italian propaganda, too, that he took a further step. This was the institution of mysteries, with hierophants [chief priests] and torch-bearers complete. The ceremonies occupied three successive days. On the first, proclamation was made on the Athenian model to this effect:

If there be any atheist or Christian or Epicurean here spying upon our rites, let him depart in haste; and let all such as have faith in the god be initiated and all blessing attained them.

He led the litany with, "Christians, avaunt!" and the crowd responded, "Epicureans, avaunt!" Then was presented [a series of pageants]; [there was] one Rutilia, a great beauty, and wife of one of the Imperial procurators. She and Alexander were lovers off the stage too, and the wretched husband had to look on at their public kissing and embracing; if there had not been a good supply of torches, things might possibly have gone even further. Shortly after, Alexander reappeared amidst a profound hush, attired as hierophant; in a loud voice he called, "Hail, Glycon!," whereto the Eumolpidae and Ceryces of Paphlagonia, with their clod-hopping shoes and their garlic breath, made sonorous response, "Hail, Alexander!"

The torch ceremony with its ritual skippings often enabled him to bestow a glimpse of his thigh, which was thus discovered to be of gold; it was presumably enveloped in cloth of gold, which glittered in the lamp-light. . . .

I will now give you a conversation between Glycon and one Sacerdos of Tius; the intelligence of the latter you many gauge from his questions. I read it inscribed in gold letters in Sacerdos' house at Tius.

"Tell me, lord Glycon," said he, "who you are." "The new Asclepius." "Another, different from the former one? Is that the meaning?" "That is not lawful for you to learn." "And how many years will you sojourn and prophesy among us?" "A thousand and three." "And after that, whither will you go?" "To Bactria; for the barbarians too must be blessed with my presence." "The other oracles, at Didymus and Clarus and Delphi, have they still the spirit of your grandsire Apollo, or are the answers that now come from them forgeries?" "That, too, desire not to know; it is not lawful." "What shall I be after this life?" "A camel; then a horse; then a wise man, no less a prophet than Alexander." Such was the conversation. . . .

As I have said, Alexander was much afraid of Epicurus, and the solvent action of his logic on imposture. On one occasion, indeed, an Epicurean got himself into great trouble by daring to expose him before a great gathering. He came up and addressed him in a loud voice,

Alexander, it was you who induced So-and-so the Paphlagonian to bring his slaves before the governor of Galatia, charged with the murder of his son who was being educated in Alexandria. Well, the young man is alive, and has come back, to find that the slaves had been cast to the beasts by your machinations!

What had happened was this: The lad had sailed up the Nile, gone on to a Red Sea port, found a vessel starting for India, and had been persuaded to make the voyage. He being long overdue, the unfortunate slaves supposed that he had either perished in the Nile or fallen a victim to some of the pirates who infested it at that time; so they came home to report his disappearance. Then followed the oracle [indicting the slaves for murder], the sentence and execution, and finally the young man's return with the story of his absence. All this the Epicurean recounted. Alexander was much annoyed by the exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront; he directed the company to stone the man, on pain of being involved in his impiety and called Epicureans. However, when they set to work, a distinguished Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued the man by interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from being stoned to death — as he richly deserved to be; what business had he to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and to needlessly make himself the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation?

This was a special case; but it was the practice for the names of applicants to be read out the day before answers were given; the herald asked whether each was to receive his oracle; and sometimes the reply came from within: "To perdition!" One so repulsed could not get shelter, fire or water, from anyone; he must be driven from land to land as a blasphemer, an atheist, and — lowest depth of all — an Epicurean.

In this connection Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous. Coming across Epicurus' "Accepted Maxims," the most admirable of his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion: "The dotard's maxims to the flames be given." The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon its readers, of the peace, tranquility, and independence of mind it produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and marvels, vain hopes and insubordinate desires, of the judgment and candor that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches and squills [garlic/onions] and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and frankness.

Perhaps the greatest example of our rogue's audacity is what I now come to. Having easy access to Palace and Court by Rutilianus' influence, he sent an oracle just at the crisis of the German war, when Marcus Aurelius was on the point of engaging the Marcomanni and Quadi. The oracle declared that two lions should be flung alive into the Danube, with quantities of sacred herbs and magnificent sacrifices. I had better give the words:

To rolling Ister, swollen with Heaven's rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling ye a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savor sweet that Indian air doth breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.

These directions were precisely followed; the lions swam across to the enemy's bank, where they were clubbed to death by the barbarians, who took them for dogs or a new kind of wolves; and our forces immediately after met with a severe defeat, losing some twenty thousand men in one engagement. This was followed by the Aquileian incident, in the course of which that city was nearly lost.

Randi comments: First, Cybele was a goddess always accompanied by two servant lions. And you might recognize that name, "Ister." It was an ancient name for the river Danube, and was used by Nostradamus in one of his quatrains. This, or the variant, "Hister," was of course snapped up by the naive and translated as, "Hitler." Hey, close enough for government work, as they say....! Lucian continues:

In view of these results, Alexander warmed up that stale Delphian defense of the Croesus oracle: the god had foretold a victory, forsooth, but had not stated whether Romans or barbarians should have it.

The constant increase in the number of visitors, the inadequacy of accommodation in the city, and the difficulty of finding provisions for consultants, led to his introducing what he called night oracles. He received the packets, slept upon them — in his own phrase — and gave answers which the god was supposed to send him in his dreams. These were generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with these, but wrote down any words that came into his head, and the results thus obtained corresponded well enough to his conception of the oracular.

There were regular interpreters in attendance, who made considerable sums out of the recipients by expounding and unriddling these oracles. This office contributed to his revenue, the interpreters paying him £250 each. Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to invented persons who had neither brought nor sent questions, and in fact did not exist at all. Here is a specimen:

Who is it, thou ask, that with Calligenia all secretly defiles the nuptial bed?

The slave Protogenes, whom most thou trust. Him thou enjoyed: he they wife enjoys. The fit return for that thine outrage done. And know that baleful drugs for thee are brewed, lest thou or see or hear their evil deeds. Close by the wall, at the bed's head, make search. Thy maid Calypso to their plot is privy.

The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a moment's thought showed him the despicable trick. Alexander often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots of theirs in the city. In these cases there was a long interval between application and response, during which the packet might be securely opened at leisure, and somebody found who was capable of translating the question.

The following is the answer given to a Scythian: "Morphi ebargulis for night Chnenchicrank shall leave the light." Another oracle to someone who neither came to him, nor even existed, was in prose. "Return the way thou came," it ran; "for he that sent thee hath this day been slain by his neighbor Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus, Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains."

With no way that this could be checked out, Alexander was very safe. Again, these are popular declarations for modern-day fakers, and for that very same reason....!

Next week, in the final Part Four of Lucian's account, we'll discover that the philosopher could and did devise methods of discovering and proving the tricks of Alexander. Stay tuned!

I'm in the UK right now. This page was sent to Jeff our web master before I left on this trip. I'll be back in time to get yet another opus ready for you, but be patient with me if the site seems a bit sparse right now. It's a lot of work....